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This iconic fighting game continues to hold its share of secrets and the capacity to surprise, well past its 30th anniversary after its original launch in arcades. The recent anthology spanning the franchise's earliest days, which includes four original arcade titles, several home system versions, and spinoffs, is more than only a accurately simulated collection of iconic titles including less celebrated releases — it functions as a detailed chronicle about the making of the renowned brand.

As a dedicated Mortal Kombat fan who has carefully followed its origins and transformation, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to understand and value about the series.

What Defines the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to other vintage game anthologies from the creators at Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, section playable historical record. The anthology contains digitally recreated editions of the first arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, along with home system and portable adaptations of some of those games. The collection even includes the series' ventures at spinoffs, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — two of the franchise's least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a greatest hits compilation, but a study of the franchise's initial era, when developer Midway and series co-creators the creative duo behind the series were figuring out how to develop a battle series, produced using film material of live performers, on the fly. Observing the archival material — which includes vintage recordings, recent conversations, and digital copies of vintage posters, illustrated stories, and even interoffice faxes — it's remarkable to see how Mortal Kombat went from simple starts to a global sensation. It's truly remarkable to see a group of pioneering developers, developing without clear direction or supervision, direct their entertainment passions into creating a legendary video game series.

Historical Section

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of the combat franchise and the founders' vocational paths at the now-defunct Midway. It then goes on to show how those same creators addressed how to regularly outdo their previous work, facing no small amount of demand to replicate their achievements. It represents an intriguing historical record constructed using analog films and analog photographs and manual drawings, which reveal the self-made character of Mortal Kombat's development and how word of mouth helped circulate its mysteries and undisclosed elements of the series in its peak period in gaming halls. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's an eminently watchable series of documentary shorts that spans games, comics, films and even the comical physical events. The collection additionally features some unused moves and game character images among its previously unreleased material.

Interactive Gaming

Distributed throughout the five-part documentary's timeline are invitations to experience the actual titles. At certain intervals, users can directly access a Mortal Kombat title or a home system version to reexperience its mechanics and graphics, recreated with impressive accuracy on current technology.

I allocated the majority of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, especially Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here remain enjoyable, particularly during local multiplayer matches. Yet competing with the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a demonstration of how basic and unjust the development approached in the series' initial installments. CPU-controlled opponents blatantly cheat to win or are alternatively incredibly stupid. Lacking a human opponent — internet multiplayer exists in the majority of included games, but somewhat limited in options — you'll be missing out.

Visual Options

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the anthology, a mix of arcade, console, and handheld games, are accurately emulated, though I detected a handful slight anomalies — mostly input lag and the occasional bug, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. Even though the releases are largely presented as-is, developer Digital Eclipse has added several intelligent convenience enhancements and display customization choices. For instance, users can elect to show each character's special moves on-screen and select to activate infinite time to complete lethal techniques. There are also options for revealing concealed combatants, without having to perform some esoteric trick to access them.

Graphically, the titles can be played with a variety of visual enhancements and presentation styles. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic options that simulate the CRT monitors of arcades or household displays, or the monochrome green display of a Game Boy. A particularly nice touch is the option to have gaming hall-style borders encircling the display, with your selected Mortal Kombat title precisely and gently mirroring against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Additional Features

There are plenty of welcome features besides the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, including a music player that allows users to rediscover the music from multiple fighting releases excluding the sounds of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. Additionally included are combatant descriptions that include bios and the various bits of lore shown through arcade games' attract mode screens and endings.

Archival Discovery

A particularly notable inclusion for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the opportunity to play a segment of previously unavailable content in the form of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This version of the game, a moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an pioneering effort from the developer at one-on-one internet-based play in arcades. This network version of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but provided the ability to compete against internet adversaries and included some minor glitch repairs and refinements. Yet this online edition never gained traction, in part